ame to Walter Hine from
taking the drug again, any harm at all which I traced to my father, I
would not keep silent."

Chayne leaned back in his seat.

"You said that--to Garratt Skinner, Sylvia!" and the warmth of pride and
admiration in his voice brought the color to her cheeks and compensated
her for that bad hour. "You stood up alone and braved him out! My dear,
if I had only been there! And you never wrote to me a word of it!"

"It would only have troubled you," she answered. "It would not have
helped me to know that you were troubled!"

"And he--your father?" he asked. "How did he receive it?"

Sylvia's face grew pale, and she stared at the table-cloth as though she
could not for the moment trust her voice. Then she shuddered and said in
a low and shaking voice--so vivid was still the memory of that hour:

"I thought that I should never see you again."

She said no more. From those few words, and from the manner in which she
uttered them, Chayne had to build up the terrible scene which had taken
place between Sylvia and her father in the little back room of the house
in Hobart Place. He looked round the lighted room, listened to the ripple
of light voices, and watched the play of lively faces and bright eyes.
There was an incongruity between these surroundings and the words which
he had heard which shocked him.

"My dear, I'll make it up to you," he said. "Trust me, I will! There
shall be good hours, now. I'll watch you, till I know surely without
a word from you what you are thinking and feeling and wanting. Trust
me, dearest!"

"With all my heart and the rest of my life," she answered, a smile
responding to his words, and she resumed her story:

"I extracted from my father a promise that every week he should write to
me and tell me how Mr. Hine was and where they both were. And to that--at
last--he consented. They have been away together for two months, and
every week I have heard. So I think there is no danger."

Chayne did not disagree. But, on the other hand, he did not assent.

"I suppose Mr. Hine is very rich?" he said, doubtfully.

"No," replied Sylvia. "That's another reason why--I am not afraid." She
chose the words rather carefully, unwilling to express a deliberate
charge against her father. "I used to think that he was--in the
beginning when Captain Barstow won so much from him. But when the bets
ceased and no more cards were played--I used to puzzle over why they
ceased last year. But